Info on Liquid biopsy

Abstract e20643 is only available online. In this trial, 10,000 solid cancer patients blood were tested by Guardian360 (a method that sequences compete exons (the part of the DNA that encodes for proteins)). Of those patients ALK fusions were detected in 6%. EML4 was the fusion partner in 81% of the patients and 4 other fusion partners made up the rest of the 19%. 24 patients has ALK+ NSCLC. Mutant alleles ranged from 0.06% to 12.5%. They found several Somatic mutations (SNV) of which 10% were known resistance mutations in ALK. They also found other occurring SNV in other genes that are rare or absent in untreated patients suggesting possible novel Crizotinib resistance mechanisms.